Who still burns DVD's in 2013 !?!?

[Selenium_Glow]

Hopefully 2 hard drives won't fail at the same time. Sorry I didn't mention 2 hard drives. That begs the question. Is it very likely that two external hard drives will fail at the same time since one simply sits un-energized and stationary as a backup?

Well, I've been unlucky enough to have 2 hard drives fail me on the same day, one after the other. It was that fateful day that I realized the advantages of living in a dormitory. Someone or the other had stuff I needed to put back on my RMAd hard drives.

That aside, my unlucky experience is an example why people are slowly moving towards cloud storage for critical documents (like flat sharing accounts sheet, CVs, Quicknotes, etc).

 

[rockfella79]

Same here. I don't like to keep a dedicated 8GB pen drive for bootable stuff.

I do for bootable ISOs

DVDs have lesser shelf life that pen drives and hdds.

I keep important stuff on dvd.USB drive can died just like hdd.with no warning.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The last optical media I used, at home and at work, if you exclude consoles was in 2006. USB sticks and internet simply did everything better.

 

[John Connor]

Those that depend on USB drives over optical media I will laugh when an EMP goes off over your city and you lose all data. LOL

 

[ShintaiDK]

Those that depend on USB drives over optical media I will laugh when an EMP goes off over your city and you lose all data. LOL

Then you also lose your PC, water supply, sewage etc. I think your data will be the least of your worries. Also any opticals will fry too since it contains metals. Same reason why it act like it does if you place it in a microwave.

Soo...so much for that!

 

[John Connor]

I don't think an EMP will fry optical media. Just chips. One poster says that flash drives will be unaffected but that is not true. Just like the chips in your car they will fry. Here.

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=72855

Link doesn't parse right.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I don't think an EMP will fry optical media. Just chips. Here. http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=72855

An EMP will hit anything metalic and will fry all electronics, powergrid, electric motors, transformers etc. And yes, opticals will die in a crisp little fireworks due to their metalic layers (usually aluminium). But again, if an EMP hit, your opticals will be the least of your worries. But they will be gone and lost.

This is how your opticals will react to an EMP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5i8jgk1H6I

 

[John Connor]

CD and DVD data (in other words, optical media) is not affected by EMP. Even if your computers are destroyed, if the country's economy can get re-built after an EMP attack, then new computers can be purchased from other continents.

http://www.greatdreams.com/EMP-protection.html

 

[ShintaiDK]

http://www.greatdreams.com/EMP-protection.html
[/B]

Thats simply not true.

The only way to protect your data from an EMP is to put it inside a faraday cage and disconnected of course. Then it doesnt matter what media you use.

 

[John Connor]

When you use the microwave as an example then what your saying is that when an EMP goes off everyone will be burnt. Microwaves are a high amount of wattage and an EMP pulse are completely different.

 

[John Connor]

Do a ctrl+F and search for CD http://www.futurescience.com/emp/emp-protection.html

Here's about the author. http://www.futurescience.com/je.html

 

[ShintaiDK]

When you use the microwave as an example then what your saying is that when an EMP goes off everyone will be burnt. Microwaves at a high amount of wattage and an EMP pulse are completely different.

You need to invent optical medias without the usage of metals to make them EMP secure.

Microwave and EMP is not that different in terms of the process that happens. The metal act as an antenna that collects the energy sent.

 

[John Connor]

Don't take it from me, take it from an electrical engineer that I linked to. I should make a thread in the highly technical forum about this.

Done. http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=35669433#post35669433

 

[AViking]

Yeah when we get bombed by an EMP I'll be worrying about more than "Oh shit my pictures are gone!"

 

[John Connor]

Well, "bombed" is a strong word. It's not a bomb per say. And I for one would not want to lose all my data. And who's we? I live in the U S of A with a giant bulls eye on our back.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Large USB sticks, PCs that can boot from USB and install OS's from USB, as well as very large and very cheap hard drive space, has made optical media essentially useless.

I sacrificed my 8th and final SATA port on my motherboard to hard drive space years ago and discarded my optical drive, I've not needed it since.

Oh except I wanted to install Fallout 3 off DVD a couple of years ago, since I bought the disc for it for some unbeknownst reason, I downloaded the ISO from the internet in about 7 minutes...so...yea...

 

[AViking]

Regardless I personally don't find them very practical. I had hundreds of CD and DVDs laying around and put them on one hard drive. Far easier to deal with them and besides that a bunch of my disks (maybe 10%) had gone bad. I was able to recover a few with a newer and better DVD burner but not enough to justify continued use of the media. Realistically speaking you need to re-burn your optical media every few years in order to ensure no data loss.

Nothing is perfect. I think the better route if you're worried about an EMP blast or even a fire is to burn them to an external drive and have it stored off site as well as storing to the cloud.

 

[Ajay]

You need to invent optical medias without the usage of metals to make them EMP secure.

Microwave and EMP is not that different in terms of the process that happens. The metal act as an antenna that collects the energy sent.

I don't think you read what John posted, the number of Watts needed to endanger your CD/DVD via microwave would need to be much much higher than and EMP pulse that could wipe a flash drive.

If you are concerned, try this: http://www.mdisc.com/what-is-mdisc/


Anyway, I use CD/DVDs only for rescue media (backup recovery, boot AV scan, etc.). I could just as well use flash drives - and maybe I will when my current DVD burner dies.

 

[WilliamM2]

Here's what happens to optical media over time, it fails: Original article below:

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment...Bomb-Detractors-say-compact-discs-2952580.php

That article (from 1999 no less) is nonsense, quotes from CD hating "audiophiles" who have been bashing the CD ever since it came out. I have over 600 CD's, at least half of them bought in the 80's. Did you see the claim that Vinyl last forever? What a crock, they lose quality each time they are played, no matter how good your equipment is.

I have over 600 CD's, at least half of them bought in the 80's. No failures yet.

 

[KingFatty]

But a pressed CD that is created by a manufacturer is different than the blank writable/burned CDR(W)s and DVDR(w)s, with multiple layers and materials that degrade differently. The writable optical media is far more prone to failure than, say, a commercial music permanent CD or DVD.

 

[Viper GTS]

I've wanted something like this for years, apparently it exists now:

http://shop.elegantinvention.com/products/isostick

This would cut my CD burning by a large margin though any more the most common thing I burn is an updated hypervisor installer disc...

Viper GTS

 

[PowerYoga]

I've had more USB sticks and HDDs die on me than a CD/DVD "peel" and become unusable.

 

[Makaveli]

I've had more USB sticks and HDDs die on me than a CD/DVD "peel" and become unusable.

in my experience i've see this also.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I still burn CDRs for the CD changer in one of my cars. I've never taken a commercial CD to be destroyed by the dust and grime in a car's player. Never had much use for DVDR.

My backups are all to HDD these days. From my PC to the file server on my network. And from there, the really important stuff to external hard drives, some of which are kept off site.

 

[PliotronX]

in my experience i've see this also.

+1 burning at about half max speed of the rating for discs insures extremely long shelf life IME. HDDs and flash drives fail for no reason, I've never had an optical disc suddenly become irreversibly inoperable that couldn't be attributed to mishandling.